Things To Do In Kota Kinabalu - Sepanggar Island

Sepanggar Island is a little island located 7 kilometers from Kota Kinabalu city centre off Sepanggar Bay, about 10 minutes ride from Kota Kinabalu city centre. Sepanggar Island has it's own accommodation powered by solar energy.

Sepanggar Island is a home for local fisherman and well known as the place where several World War II bombs has been found. Sepanggar Island is not too crowded just like Sapi Island or Manukan Island, so you will have a chance to enjoy your own private time here. You can search for images of Sepanggar Islands via Google Images.

You can go to Sepanggar Island from Jesselton Point Kota Kinabalu, next to the Royal Custom Office building, near Cock & Bull bar. Boats to Sepanggar Island departs every day usually at 9:45 am in the morning. The boat transfer cost is included in your travel package to Sepanggar Island. All you have to do is to go to the Jesselton Point Jetty (just like the picture below) register and wait for your boat to depart to Sepanggar Island for you holiday.

So, what things to do in Sepanggar Island? When you arrive in Sepanggar Island, you can do many activities depends on you if you are a nature lover or underwater lover. If you are nature lover and seeking adventure, the rain forest trail is waiting for you.

You can take a trail that will climb up to South Peak (the highest peak in Sepanggar Island). When you reach the peak, you will see Gaya Bay, Likas Bay, the beauty of South China Sea and Tunku Abdul Rahman Park from a distance.

You will see giant tress, fern and rattan along the trails. You will hear birds singing endlessly and the buzz of Sepanggar Island's inhabitants. If you want to go for a hike, you will not allowed to go alone, instead, the operator company will prepare a guide for you.

If you are an underwater lover, go scuba diving, snorkeling, kayaking or simply lying lazily on white sandy beach of Sepanggar Island. There is 8 popular dive sites around Sepanggar Island, if you want more, you can explore dive sites in Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park which is just nearby.

If you are a scuba diving enthusiast, you can take a leisure diving package in Sepanggar Island at the price of 278 Malaysian Ringgit per dive. There is also scuba diving courses available but only Discover Scuba Diving course, Open Water Scuba Diving Course and Advance Open Water Course.

If you want to spend a night in Sepanggar Island, you can select Hill Chalet or Beach Chalet. The Hill Chalet is available for 388 Malaysian Ringgit per room while the price for Beach Chalet is per room for one night.You can stay for 2 days and one night or for 3 days and 2 nights in Sepanggar Island chalets.

Beach Chalet has it's own toilet and shower room - both separated from each other and toilet and shower room is spacious, which is very comfortable. Beach Chalet bedroom has it's own veranda, equipped with two wooden chair and wooden table. Sepanggar Island Beach Chalet is suitable for family with kids, we show you in the pictures below.

If you choose to stay at Hill Chalet, the toilet and the shower room is built together in one compact space, we mean, not separated. When you enter the toilet in Hill Chalet, it's inner area is small and the shower room sliding door is next to the toilet seat.

Both Sepanggar Island chalets have beautiful views, one from the hill top and one from the beach. Very calm and relaxing. But, if you bring your kids along, Sepanggar Island's Hill Chalet is not suitable because veranda is not equipped with safety fence in the front.

All we can say, Hill Chalet is totally for adults or couples who love to enjoy sea view from high spot, if you don't mind walking up and down the stairs several times to get your food and drinks from the cafe below. Hill Chalet is actually a small house built from steel and wood, standing several meters from the beach level in the middle of Sepanggar Island's jungle. Hill Chalet's bedroom is just like the picture below.

The bad side of Sepanggar Island is the rubbish. When you walk down to the beach, you will see plastic bags, bottles and wrappers all being left unnoticed, but we realized Sepanggar Island staffs are doing their best to clean the beach and keep it that way.

In our opinion, the operator company should hire several group of people to clean up Sepanggar Island beach on full time basis. They should do that! The beach is beautiful but somehow seeing the rubbish make our 'vacation mood' goes away.

The breakfast and the food is good, all cooked in Malaysian menu. But, you can only buy drinks. No snacks. On the beach, there were hammocks, sun longer, chairs and tables available for you to use. This is a very nice spot to sit and watch the beach, for reading, enjoying a cup of coffee or writing a book!

You can read, relax, enjoy a chat or do sunbathing. Sepanggar Island beach is quite similar to Sapi Island beach and Padang Point Beach, except there is not so many other tourist and the place is quite, because not so many tourists were around.

We highly recommend Sepanggar Island for you if you choose to stay away from tourists' favorite places which will make it a very crowded area. Sepanggar Island is suitable for you if you are looking for cheap and low cost island to stay for several days during your holiday in Kota Kinabalu.

One more thing, if you open up Sepanggar Island website, the operator will confuse you with Mantanani Island because the information about Mantanani Islands is mixed up with information about Sepanggar Island. Seems like the operator company is quite 'desperate' to sell Mantanani Island travel package and they advertise it heavily on the website.

In another point of view, if you open Sepanggar Island website, the operator will try to change your focus to Mantanani Island travel package trip, we think simply because Sepanggar Island travel package is cheap (the cheapest among Mantanani Island, Sapi Island or Manukan Island package price) so they intended not to sell Sepanggar Island package it seriously or not giving too much attention on it.

The booking form is Sepanggar Island website was being built using Google Forms, which is not so professional because Google Form is available for free. Sepanggar Island website is not content rich, so all you have to do to ask for more information is to contact the operator company.

If you look closely to Sepanggar Island website url in adress bar of any browser you use, the company named the page as 'Mantanani Island' - not Sepanggar Island dotcom, dotnet or something. Sepanggar Island web pages should be separated from Mantanani Island webpages, so online visitor like you and us will not get confused.

You cant charge up your electronic gadgets (laptops, smartphone, tablets, cameras) in chalet rooms during daytime. You need to go to charging area in Sepanggar Island main area near the cafe. Luckily because not so many people around, there is always be vacant spot available for you. But if the charging area is crowded, you need to wait.

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About This Blog

We build this blog because we love to write about travel, outdoor activities, beautiful places to go, cafe to eat and nice hotel to sleep. Our aim is to provide the best information to tourists who come to Kota Kinabalu and looking for things to do while staying in Kota Kinabalu.